“Kylian Mbappé was completely right to describe Mao Zedong as a dictator”: Marine Tondelier defends the star of the Blues, the Insoumis kick in touch

The national secretary of environmentalists Marine Tondelier defended, Wednesday October 28, the captain of the French team Kylian Mbappé who drew the wrath of Beijing after describing the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong as a “dictator”. “Kylian Mbappé was entirely right to describe Mao Zedong as a dictator. The tens of millions of deaths for which Mao is responsible and the totalitarian nature of his regime are confirmed by all historians,” indicated Marine Tondelier on X, stressing that the player had “not expressed an opinion but established facts”.

“In an era where science is questioned every day by supporters of authoritarianism, it is never useless” to “recall” these “established facts”, insists Marine Tondelier, for whom “systematically giving in to economic pressure from China is a sign of weakness”.

In a podcast published several weeks ago, Kylian Mbappé said that the meme with his image at which he "laughed the most" was an image which associates him with Mao Zedong, whom he refers to in the extract as "a Chinese dictator". Comments which aroused the ire of China at the start of the week, pushing the French international to apologize, before being followed by La Liga then by his club, Real Madrid.

A reaction which contrasts with those of the elected representatives of rebellious France Mathilde Panot and Antoine Léaument on Wednesday. “I believe that Kylian Mbappé made a press release to apologize for it, which act,” the leader of the LFI deputies in the Assembly reacted soberly on TF1, while indicating that the subject hardly inspired her to comment. “Perhaps this controversy allows us to keep an eye on China, which is a large country (...) often a little despised by our leaders,” explained MP Antoine Léaument on Sud Radio.

Refusing to answer the question of whether Mao Zedong was a dictator, the rebellious elected official conceded that China had a "rather authoritarian" regime. “But sorry, the difference exactly with France, between authoritarian regimes? France where we cannot demonstrate, where there are demonstrations that are prohibited?" asked the MP. "I am not telling you that the Chinese regime would be the model that we would like to put in place in our country (...). What I would like is for us to be able to have normal international relations with all countries,” added Antoine Léaument.